Details Torn from MacNolia’s Diary

A. Van Jordan

Morning: What's another word for rage if not loss?Set out for boat ride on the Wilson LineWith other district champs, but not allowed aboveThe bottom of the boat. History in my nostrils, flared.A pigeon asked me for a quarterIn the park. A beggar ate crumbs from my hand.Lunch: White House. Washington Monument in background,Mother and Ms. Norris in foreground. Chiaroscuro, a wordI must remember. Elizabeth Kenney is a Negro girlFrom a southern district, somewhere in North Carolina.She's wringing her hands. I must keep my head. Everything movesLike it's from a different planet. Street vendors have more handsThan Vishnu. No one is in love in DC. Where do the babiesCome from in this town? No, how do they survive? An old, NegroMan is dancing in the middle of the street; he moves his gloved handEast, and the cars move toward the sun, he moves his other handWest, and they head toward the ocean. Someone loves him who walksThe dotted line. How else does he get his shoes off at night?Night: my hand disappears inside President Roosevelt's as heCongratulates me, just for showing up, before the competition.Elizabeth Kenney misspells Appellation in round one.Now, I'm alone and the dreams set in:I see Ethel Waters pouring tea at a table in the audience.Was Asa Philip Randolph really shining shoes in the lobby?I ask again, where do the babies come from? And I'm snappedBack to the spelling bee as the announcer repeats NemesisAs two tongues dance like a poor child for changeBehind his teeth.

Feature Date

Series

Selected By

Share This Poem

Print This Poem

A. Van Jordan is the author of four collections: Rise, which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award (Tia Chucha Press, 2001); M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, (2005), which was listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times; Quantum Lyrics, (2007); and The Cineaste, (2013), W.W. Norton & Co. Jordan has been awarded a Whiting Writers Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and a Pushcart Prize. He is also a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2007), a United States Artists Fellowship (2009), and a Lannan Literary Award in Poetry (2015). His forthcoming book, When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again, will be released in June of 2023 (W.W. Norton & Co). He served as the Robert Hayden Collegiate Professor of English Literature at The University of Michigan, and he is currently the Humanities and Sciences Chair in English at Stanford University.

New York, New York

"Jordan is a wizard at capturing vernacular in both conventional forms and his own invention."
Black Issues Book Review

In 1936, teenager MacNolia Cox became the first African American finalist in the National Spelling Bee Competition. Supposedly prevented from winning, the precocious child who dreamed of becoming a doctor was changed irrevocably. Her story, told in a poignant nonlinear narrative, illustrates the power of a pivotal moment in a life.

Poetry Daily Depends on You

With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.